


Find What You Look For

by rocketpool



Series: And the Divine, Caught like Stars in Trees [2]
Category: Actor RPF
Genre: Angst, M/M, because sometimes you hurt your characters, cross-posted from LJ, sex happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-22
Updated: 2010-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-02 04:49:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rocketpool/pseuds/rocketpool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Psyche's been looking for Eros for a long, long time. He finds him one afternoon in LA...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Find What You Look For

**Author's Note:**

> Psyche and Eros have been floating around in my head for a while now, and a few pieces started writing themselves slowly. And out of order. Finally they're cohesive enough... I only ask that you use this posting as leverage against [](http://raggedy-edge.livejournal.com/profile)[**raggedy_edge**](http://raggedy-edge.livejournal.com/) for Hades. I'm just sayin'.

 

  
He finally finds Eros on a Wednesday morning, of all things. It’s one of those trussed up morning shows doing an interview in the park, with a small little stage and minimal lighting and plenty of adoring crowds surrounding them. A woman with a fake smile and dyed hair and a perfectly pressed skirt suit is speaking to him, but Lee’s only got eyes for Eros.

He’s wearing that dazzling smile, so Lee can feel the energy crackling across the audience, already enraptured and holding their breath in hopes that maybe he’ll just _look_ at them. Ewan, the name he’s going by now apparently, is answering questions about some club he’s opened. About what it’s like to party with the most beautiful and influential people. He smiles just that little bit more, just enough to be suggestive. Just enough to make his answer coy, because of course there’s more than partying going on. There always is, with Eros.

It twists something in Lee’s stomach, and he wonders what Eros, what Ewan would do, if he saw Lee standing there, amongst the crowd. Would he even care? Would he hold his cover and look for him after? But Ewan doesn’t see him, and that just makes it twist all the more. There was a time when Eros would know he was there without needing to look. When he could find him anywhere in the world if he wanted.

“Well,” the plastic, wannabe newswoman says with a hollow chuckle, “would a playboy like you ever consider settling down? Has there ever been anyone challenging or interesting enough to tempt you?”

Lee knows what the answer will be, but that doesn’t stop it hurting actually hearing it. Seeing his mouth form the words, so happy, so utterly carefree. “What? No, I don’t see that happening at all. There’s too many people to meet, _friends_ to make, if you catch my meaning. There’s just too much fun to be had to bother tying myself down—” Ewan keeps talking, his voice ringing in Lee’s ears, but he’s heard enough, and he leaves before the interview is done.

~

Lee finally remembers how to breathe in the shower. He isn’t sure how long he’s been in there, not when the water never runs cold and the lights never flicker. There’s no window in the bathroom to show night or day, no clock on the wall to show the hour. He blinks, suddenly and simply aware of the heavy emptiness that’s been holding him in place, curled up under the spray. It was enough to make him numb, to just glaze over the world…

_He doesn’t know what he’s doing here, at a party like this. A friend of a friend of a friend, that’s the way things work out here, isn’t it? And maybe, just maybe he was hoping to find Ewan here. His name drops around the room, like he’s some kind of password. Lee listens carefully, keeps his eyes open. Catches a glimpse, just a glimpse, and hears what’s not being said about a certain room in the back._

The memory creeps up on him, playing in front of his eyes like some old film, grainy from the water splashing down over him as it plays out against the tiles. It presses against the emptiness, filling it even as it tears it open, forcing him to _feel_ it for the first time. He closes his eyes, wants for nothing more than the emptiness again. The sweet calm and silence of nothing at all.

_Expecting to see an orgy and actually seeing an orgy are not quite the same. Once upon a time it wouldn’t have phased him much. He’d roll his eyes and pass on, go home and wait. There was a time when Ewan always came home, and for all he was pleased with his work, he loved home just as much. Those times are quite clearly gone. With him in the center of a writhing mass of naked Somebodies, all fucked and fucking, with him riding the tide of their pleasure, their praise._

It cracks him open, and he curls in on himself, oblivious to the tears lost in the shower’s spray. His shoulders shake and he wants to scream, but only a soft, lost moan will pass his lips. He keens until finally, finally he moves, hand slamming into the wall, cracking the tiles, breaking skin. Still it does nothing to touch the pain, to quiet the memory.

_Their eyes meet, and for one cold moment Lee can’t hear the moans, can’t hear the slap of flesh on flesh. He holds his breath, trying not to wonder if Ewan will reach for him. If Ewan will extract himself and come to him. If he’ll just say his goddamn name. But the moment passes, broken by hips rolling against Ewan’s ass, by lips sliding against his cock, and Lee is forgotten, still standing in the doorway. Not that he stays there long._

At last he breaks, shattering like so many drops of water. Lee lets himself weep, lets himself mourn, until he is exhausted. He can’t stay in this shower forever, however much he has no desire to move. So he turns the water off, picks himself up, and goes through the motions of drying himself off, of bandaging his hand. He stalks into the bedroom and dresses quickly ( _there’s no one to be naked for_ ) and only debates for a moment whether to hit the minibar.

After all, the shortest distance between here and oblivion is a good bottle of whiskey.

~

Going home is a blur, but that’s alright — home is a fallacy. _Home_ faded away lifetimes ago, and Lee’s starting to wonder what he’s still doing here. _Here_ is a little flat in New York City. Just some place to stay while the sun rises and sets, some place to sleep when he’s not doing small time theater. Never enough to attract attention but just enough to do something vaguely satisfying while he waits.

While he _was_ waiting. In vain.

The time blurs together. He thinks maybe his phone rings for a while, the theater people wondering where he is probably, but he doesn’t get out of bed. For a while someone bangs on the door. He feels bad about that, his neighbor is a sweet old lady and even after all this time he’s uncomfortable denying her some simple hospitality. Summer changes to fall and the wind grows cold, but he only knows because he goes out for more whiskey.

It surprises him when he steps out and the rain is actually snow. Well, slush, anyway, briny, dirty slush that soaks into his chucks and sends cold up through his legs until he can feel the stuff spattering against his face. Gray, the whole damn city is gray and frozen and it, fuck it all, it just twists his insides. The city will have its spring, will thaw and then blossom.

Lee doesn’t want to remember what the city looks like when it blossoms. When he buys the latest bottle of whatever the hell he’s got in his hand, he can’t help but overhear the girls by the gossip mags. They look a little blitzed out. One too many parties and still high…

“Did you hear that McGregor’s throwing a party there next week? Think they’d let us in?”  
“Us? You shitting me? The man would turn _Trump_ away. And I mean the daughter.”  
“Yeah, but I know the bouncer there. Jerry’ll let us in, you’ll see…”

He opens the bottle on the street. His apartment goes on sale the next day. Lee briefly considers Alaska, but decides west Texas is a closer piece of nowhere.  



End file.
